Archive for the 'Blogs' Category

Yahoo! Answers is a great way to interact with potential customers and other consumers that have questions surrounding your industry, product, or service. People ask all kinds of questionsover there, and get some interesting answers as well. I have utilized this site for many clients — not for links, but for interacting with people who need answers.

Answers Changes

Now for the real stuff. Yahoo! recently changed the way they do links. In short, any link in an answer isn’t hyper-linked until you get past Level 1. Yahoo! Answers has levels that allow you to do more in a day to gain points. The more points, the higher your status, trust, and coolness factor (ok, not really on that last one). Here is the info on how to get more points and what the levels are.

Basically, the change is good to help combat (though it doesn’t help completely) the people that create thousands of accounts, spam with answers that are fraudulent or other kinds of spammy, and then drop the account.

What to Do

So if you just got on Yahoo! Answers and are wondering how people are going to be able to get to that awesome link you just referenced, don’t fret. I’ve noticed that people in Level 1 who link to other sites are not only not hyperlinked, but also have their links truncated. If you can get past level 1, and it’s fairly easy to do so (shh!!), those links that were not linked before do become linked later.

So don’t be spammy, put some work into it, and Yahoo! Answers will pay you back in the long run. The more best answers you get, the more business you could get. These questions rank very well in Google and Yahoo!!

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Well alrighty now, you have your website all set up. You have your analytics tracking in place and your AdWords ads are online. Traffic is starting to flow in and you’ve optimized your landing pages. It feels good doesn’t it? You’re getting somewhere now and you’ve come a long way. You have come a long way, learning all those acronyms, CPC, CTR and CPA.

Somewhere on a long lost to-do list or just even in the back of your mind lies that terrifying and complicated next hurdle “Social Media Marketing”.

Ugh… you ask yourself “where do I begin?” and “what exactly is social media anyway?” I’m sure you have a general idea of what it is and you have seen other companies doing it. It can’t be that hard right? Then I bet you tell yourself something like “I’ll get to it soon” or maybe “That’ll be next quarter’s goal.”

First of all, give yourself a huge pat on the back for coming as far as you have with your online endeavor. You should feel really proud of yourself.

Now suck it up buddy because if you don’t take this next step your completion will and then all the hard work you have done so far will all be nothing and you’ll have nothing to show for it.

So, what the hell is Social Media?
I have read many definitions and descriptions trying to find the right way to explain it. I wasn’t happy with any of them so I’m going to take a stab at it in my own way. Having just a website is like fishing off of a dock with one fishing pole. You cross your fingers and just wait for the fish to come to you. PPC and SEO are more like using a trotline, many baited hooks. Improved odds but you still wait for the fish to come to you. Social media is more like hopping on a boat and going to where all the fish are and throwing out a huge net, mass capture.

Claim Your Name
Even if the idea of social media scares you to death at least register your company or website name. Don’t make it easy for your competition to take your name before you get around to tackling social media. Try to use the same name and profile image when creating accounts for consistency and making it easier for people to find you. It can also help build solid brand recognition.

Mix, Mingle and Join In
Now you have a complete profile and a spiffy pic but you are all alone with no friends, followers, buddies or fans. Well unless you are a crazy hot chic you won’t make any friends hanging out alone by the wall. Jump into conversations, get involved in things and talk to new people. Send out requests to people that seem like they are interesting. Search for ongoing groups or talks about related things to the service or product your business offers.

Don’t Fear RejectionDon’t expect everyone to freak out and rush to talk to you. You are going to have to work at building your profiles. Not everyone will accept your invites or reply to your comments. Don’t wear your feelings on your sleeve and don’t take anything personal. Just go with the flow and be casual. If someone doesn’t reply to comment you made directly to them don’t worry about it and don’t let it stop you from trying to interact with them. If you are steadily joining in on conversations, answering questions or asking questions then the friend count will increase naturally.

For the launch of Marketing Demons, we decided to make a splash with t-shirts at SMX Advanced. Our friends over at Get Your Shirts, purveyors of fantastic custom t-shirts, were nice enough to help us design and produce truly fun and slightly “demonic” shirts.

We only ordered 15 to start and put them on a group of amazing friends at the show.

It seemed like everyone wanted their own tail! So we opened up a form to see who else wanted one in the future. If you have suggestions when requesting one, we are open to them. Remember, we can’t promise anything, but they might show up at a show near you soon, or on your doorstep.

Here are some awesome ladies modeling the shirts for us, front and back. You can see why they were such a hit.

Thanks to everyone who helped us get the new name out. We are excited about the new format of this business, the fun and adventerous spirit of the name, with the no nonsense approach to results. We hope you do too!

Yes, there are blog posts here that look familiar and that is because New Edge Media is now Marketing Demons. Some of the team has ventured off to begin a new adventure. We have a new outlook and philosophy.

The Demons are about the client and their needs. We will train, manage, or just consult. If you want a team working on your project, we are there for you. If you need help hiring and training your new in-house team, we have been there and are ready to show them the ropes. But in the end, we promise this: we will do what you need, impart knowledge and then depart until you need us again.

Business is constantly changing and we are there to help you out as you develop your online campaigns.

How is mayhem a good thing you say? Why is that the title of our monthly positive recap? Well … have you met any of us? Mayhem is the New Edge middle name. Anything to make people laugh makes us happy, even if the authorities disagree. (I’m kidding, swear)

First up is the exciting New Edge News

Anna bought a new HOUSE!!! Yay!

Kate attended PubCon South and spoke on a few panels – and had a blast having everyone in her home town! (Guess where South will be next year?? It’s looking like DALLAS!)

The New Edge Team is doing the Walk for Lupus in Dallas on April 25th! Please consider donating.

Kate had an article published in the SES Magazine on Paid Search: In-house vs Outsourced

Brandy’s daughter Erin was accepted to the Gifted program at school. Chip off the old block!

We all weathered the Texas Storms (read: HAIL) very well. My car is fine (phew), Brandy got a new roof, and Steve’s new Corvette is still shiny and new!

Brandy’s family celebrated her brother’s 38th birthday when he was told he only had 3 months to live at 35. Totally healthy and cancer-free now.

On December 3rd, 2008, I broke down and asked twitter what paid search questions everyone had. I was hunting for blog topics and as of this week they are finally done. So I wanted to review what was asked and the answer provided. There are some that I cannot find the original reply. If you asked and want credit, please let me know! I posted the articles all over the interwebs so here goes.

Organization of groups and campaigns and moving budgets. Some best practices.

First of all, thank you so much to Brett Tabke and the entire WebmasterWorld Staff (Vanessa, TJ, Jeff, Neil, Joe) for hosting such a wonderful conference in my favorite city, Austin, TX. I had a blast that week, you all did a phenomenal job.

Guy Kawasaki came up with my new favorite twitter term – UFM (unfollow me) – “Don’t like what I said? Then ufm” (sound it out, it’s funny)

Matt Cutts came with an announcement about Google FriendFeed API and answered other questions from the audience.

Favorite panels – Landing Page Optimization for Conversion (I’m biased, I was moderating) and Conversion Rate Testing and Optimization (I missed a lot of great panels though because of a test and my own panels, tell me your faves!)

Best Party: BuzzStream launch party. Not know what BuzzStream is? I call it SalesForce for Link Building. Not fully released yet, but if you’re interested let me know. I might be able to get you an invite. (SalesForce is in no way affiliate with BuzzStream)

Best Crew and Schwag: Raven Tools and the Social Tool shirt and swiss army knife. The Alison’s rule!! (sorry, inside joke, they have 2 Alisons (Alysons) on the team)

Topis of the Conference – Twitter and Social Media. Yeah, I am with everyone else here, we talked about it a LOT.

What else did I miss other than it RULED??

So here is to hoping that the conference will happen again next year, but I am hearing whispers of another city? Either way, in true PubCon tradition it was a blast with fantastic information. Great seeing everyone!

We are nearing the end of the series of questions I got from friends on Twitter about PPC. This post will answer two questions. There is only one more after this post, so get ready for me to ask for more questions on my next topic. For now, let’s look at getting started in PPC, specifically:

If I wanted to get into it, what’s the best thing to do first?

Discuss how it can take time to ramp up on organic, so PPC can help in immediate ROI and overall performance

As the second question/topic notes, organic search marketing can take some time to start producing results. No SEO can guarantee results tomorrow on their work today, so many search marketers are turning to PPC to produce great results while the SEO is working it’s magic. Once the SEO work ramps up, there has been research showing that PPC campaigns improve the CTR on natural rankings by increasing trust in the company.

So how do you get started in PPC? Here are a few things to focus on as you are starting into the world of paid search. Be sure to check out what Brandy had to say on the same subject when she was getting into the thick of paid search marketing.

Use Google AdWords Free TrainingWell I default to Google but MSN has their own training program as well. Check them both out for the widest variety of training in the top paid search platforms in the market. These programs are free, the only fee comes in taking the certification test. Use what is free though, you don’t always need that affirmation of what you’ve learned.

Learn to Love Analytics
Analytics is a key part of being a good paid search marketer. You cannot know what is working without knowing your company/client analytics package like the back of your hand. In paid search, ROI (or ROAS as some like to say) is the ultimate goal. Impressions, Clicks, and Click Through Rate (CTR) are a very minor part of the equation. You have to check to see how your campaigns are converting, impacting the website as a whole, and using the information in organic search marketing efforts as well. The phrases and ad text that convert in the end are useful in all aspects of search marketing.

Make Excel your New BFF
As you get started you are going to learn that Excel (or Numbers/Whatever you use) is your best friend. Tracking results, working with analytics, exporting reports, designing reports … it’s all done in Excel. You might decide to purchase a program to help you down the road to do all of this, but for the start, get to know what Excel can do for you.

Read and LearnIn search marketing there is no one place to find everything, but you can use your powers of search and your social network to ask questions and discover new articles with tips and tricks. Ask questions, post on blogs, go to conferences and corner the speakers. The good ones will be more than willing to sit down with you (for the bargain cost of a drink) and answer any question you have. That’s what is great about this community, we want the ads to be better. Hey, we all have to look at them.